head to head · open source
manim vs pterm
manim has 94,584 GitHub stars, 7,761 forks, 500 open issues and last shipped 26 days ago. pterm has 5,548 stars, 223 forks, 88 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. manim leads on adoption by 1,605% (94,584 vs 5,548 stars). manim is written in Python under MIT; pterm is written in Go under MIT. manim has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, pterm 4%. manim was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (animation), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| manim | pterm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 95K | ★ 5.5K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-07-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 7.8K | ⑂ 223 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick manim if
- You weight community size — 95K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pterm if
- You want the pterm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pterm fits your workflow better
About manim
Manim is a Python animation engine for precise, programmatic rendering of explanatory mathematics videos, built for educators, mathematicians, and developers who want frame accurate control over every element of a mathematical animation instead of editing on a timeline.
read the full manim overview →
About pterm
PTerm is a Go module for developers who want their command line programs to produce formatted, interactive console output without writing ANSI escape sequences by hand.
read the full pterm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is manim or pterm more popular?
manim has 94,584 GitHub stars and pterm has 5,548. manim has the larger community by that measure.
Are manim and pterm free?
Both are open source. manim is licensed under MIT and pterm under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between manim and pterm?
manim is written in Python and pterm in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, manim or pterm?
Choose manim if you want the larger community (94,584 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pterm if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.